Liz and Michael were having lunch by the time I'd unsaddled Paint and gotten him settled in the corral. Jefferson had complicated things by greeting me and parading around between my feet and rubbing on the horse's fetlocks. Paint didn't mind. He and Jefferson were friends and the cat often spent hours in the barn, largely, I suspect, due to the mice that made their hazardous living gleaning pieces of grain that the horses spilled.
I went up the steps, stomped the dust off my boots and entered to find my wife and son sitting at the table. A third plate waited for me.
Over lunch, we discussed our preparations for my upcoming odyssey. I'd decided to dress in my worn buckskins and try to look like a wandering mountain man. I figured that if I didn't look prosperous and also gave off an aura of competence, most likely, I'd be judged as not being worth the hassle of trying to rob. Liz agreed and we went on to talk about how she'd manage while I was gone.
After we'd eaten, Michael and I went through my kit and packed the things I'd need. Warm clothes, a compass, a topo map, sleeping bag, fire starter, my Sig and a couple of boxes of ammo along with all eight magazines. I decided on taking the .300 Win Mag. I didn't have much ammo, but the thing was a great shooter and easily reached out to ridiculous distances accurately. It was just a little too much gun with too much recoil for Liz to use anyway. I could have taken one of our M-4s, but those just wouldn't kill Pug-bears. I also rejected the old bolt-action .338 as too heavy and slow. As an after thought, I took down my snowshoes and set them beside the door. It had been a cold winter and the snow wasn't off the peaks yet.
Over Liz's protests, I left her both splinter-shooters. I pointed out that she could use them to defend the cabin and they'd easily kill aliens if any showed up. Besides, where would I, as an indigent mountain man, come up with such a weapon? They'd cast some suspicion on my cover, assuming that I needed cover. I convinced her that I could always scavenge one of the alien weapons if the opportunity presented itself.
I busied myself for the rest of the day, cleaning, rubbing waterproofing into the leather and arranging my gear for easy packing. I finished my work in the early evening and spent the time after supper playing with Michael. Liz would occasionally give me a rather forlorn look, but we didn't discuss my upcoming journey or my low probability of survival and success.
I had another restless night and so did she. We finally fell asleep, huddled together under the down comforter and content with each others closeness.
Dawn finally arrived. Liz had gotten up and had coffee on by the time I'd gathered my things. As we ate, I tried to memorize everything, because it promised to be my last family dinner for an unknown length of time.
It wasn't more than an hour later that Paint and I were crossing the creek. I'd had a little trouble with Jefferson. He had given every indication that he was going to come with us. He obviously recognized that I was preparing for a lengthy journey and he did his best to complicate things, pacing around and yowling periodically. The yowls got on both my nerves and Paint's. The horse actually seemed glad to get across the creek and away from the cat.
I thought that Jefferson was going to try to swim across the quick-running stream for a moment, but Liz and Michael had walked down with me. She grabbed him, just as he was preparing to make the plunge and I urged Paint to cross.
I paused as we came up the bank on the far side of the ford and turned in the saddle to wave one last goodbye. Paint took that exact moment to try and shake some of the water off and it kind of ruined my seat. Michael laughed and Liz smiled and that gave me a good mental picture to hold in my mind while I was away.
Within an hour, we were heading up the road past the ranger station and moving into the park. The road hadn't been maintained since the EMP and it was falling apart. The asphalt was cracked and pot-holed and weeds were growing up through the cracks. Nevertheless, it gave us a slightly more level path and Paint gradually wended his way around the obstacles as we began the long climb.
I'd hoped to reach the top and be partway down the other side by dusk, but I ran into an unfortunate complication. The snow was packed high and the pass was still blocked. At about the ten thousand foot level, I pulled up. My horse had been making heavy going of it for the last ninety minutes and I knew he wasn't going to be able to continue. The snow was just too deep. It was also getting too dark to go on due to a front that was coming over the front range. We paused in the wind as I looked around at the desolate scene. After a moment, I led him off into some low trees and made a camp for the night.
I figured that I'd have to send him back down tomorrow, but I didn't want him wandering around in the dark. Paint was a smart horse and I knew that he'd go right back to the barn. Life there was too good for him to ignore. The thought of regular feedings of cracked corn (hard to get in our valley, but worthwhile) would be enough to insure his return.
I tied him to a spruce and stomped a level area out in the snow. Then I unpacked my kit and set about gathering squaw wood for a small fire. I had a tarp and my sleeping bag and didn't need the fire to last all night, but I did want a warm supper and some hot tea.
In short order, the flames were crackling and I had a small pan full of snow melting. The wind had picked up and there were snow flakes on the breeze, so I was glad I'd stopped. I fed Paint and then myself, then got my sleeping arrangement set.
I gathered some fresh branches and laid them out into a rough bed. Then I spread the tarp and laid my bag out on it. Taking off my boots, I climbed in the bag and sat watching the fire, my rifle at my side. My Sig was, as it always is, close at hand inside the bag.
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The flames died down and the snow came in more heavily as the night progressed. The wind was blowing up a half-gale, but most of it was above the spruces. I'd picked a spot where they were thick and the heavily needled branches shielded me from most of the storm. Paint slept standing up and everything was peaceful, until sometime in the small hours of the night.
I awoke instantly as Paint snorted. I didn't sit up, but lay there, surreptitiously putting my hand out on my rifle. As I grasped the weapon, I pushed my senses out into the aether. I was immediately aware of a presence there and the signature was definitely feline.
As I worked on sensing the creature, I gradually resolved the signals I was getting to an area to the south of my camp. That was the way I'd come into the trees and the sensation of stealthy approach was localized along my path.
The problem with mental contact is that you don't always recognize the source. Contrary to what you'd think, animals are somewhat indistinct in their mental signatures. Deer and elk give off generalized browsing and vegetarian auras with timidity and caution mixed in. Predators, on the other hand, are a little more difficult. It's relatively easy to tell that they're interested in hunting and killing prey, but it's harder to tell exactly what they are.
An animal doesn't know that it's a “deer� or a “wolf.� It does have a sense of self in relation to other creatures, but, if you could read its mind, you'd understand that its personal identification doesn't have elements that relate to human categories. It only knows that it's predator or prey and aggressive or timid.
A dog, even the smallest Yorkie, thinks it's every bit as tough as a wolf. The wolf may give off a bit more stealthiness, I don't know how else to describe it. They're more sneaky, but so are coyotes and foxes. I found it really difficult to tell them apart based on their mental auras.
The sensation I was now getting was that of a cat, but, aside from the fact that I knew it wasn't Jefferson, it could have been a house cat, a lynx or bobcat, or a cougar. It approached and I gradually understood that it was interested in Paint. That level of interest keyed my understanding and I realized that it was a cougar.
It was suspicious of my scent, but it was hungry and the horse smelled like a good meal. I read in its thoughts that it had eaten horse-flesh before and had found it good. It was stealthily preparing to attack in a manner that it had calculated held the highest probability of success. The darkness and gusty wind served its purpose admirably. I could sense that it was confident that it couldn't be detected as it slunk nearer.
Now that I knew what I faced, I wanted to frighten it off permanently and not have to worry about it sneaking around for the rest of the night. It knew that horses and men didn't have the night vision ability it had and it depended on not being visible. I thought that I could frighten it off fairly easily.
I began to push out a general feeling of unease and danger into the surrounding energy field. I built up the projection, trying as I did to bypass Paint. I didn't want to frighten him into the jaws of the cougar. He shifted uneasily as I created the sense of a large bear, just awakening and angry.
I could tell the cougar was beginning to feel a deep sense of unease. The prey that it had marked was already the property of a bear. It might try to face down a bear, but it knew that it had no chance against one. I kept pushing my energy into the aether and suddenly, I became aware that the cougar's energy field was gradually fading. It was softly retreating, using the gusts of wind as cover for its moves. I kept up the bear projection and then tried to implant it into my mind where it would reside at a low level with only a minimal conscious effort.
The cat was gone and, I hoped, not coming back for the rest of the night. I sent a mental probe out to it and realized that it was now quite far away and moving out across the valley, searching for other prey. I relaxed gradually. The wind continued gusting and I finally went back to sleep.
